Images

Cross-cutting Faults on Rhea

NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this image of the surface of Saturn's icy moon Rhea during its closest flyby of the moon. Rhea's surface is scarred by many craters and several long, cross-cutting faults. These faults – and the presence of so many craters -- show Rhea may have had some activity early in its geological history, but never developed the full-blown activity seen on other moons in the Saturn system. This raw image was taken by Cassini's narrow-angle camera on Jan. 11, 2011, from approximately 41,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) away.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.